Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle is a short story by Washington Irving, first published in his Sketch-Book in 1819-20, about a man who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains of pre-Revolutionary New York and only re-awakens 20 years later to discover that both he and the world about him have completely changed. The story itself is based on a German folk tale which Irving encountered while in Europe. It is often regarded as the first American short story and proved so popular at the time, and since, that the name of the principal character has entered the American lexicon.

The story is fictionally attributed to Diedrich Knickerbocker, Irving's literary invention whom he also employed as the supposed author of his History of New York.

Story summary

Rip Van Winkle lived in a small village in the Hudson River valley in upstate New York. He was a simple, good-natured fellow who loved to spend long, lazy days conversing with the other villagers in front of the village inn and going on long forays into the nearby Catskill Mountains with his hunting rifle and his dog Wolf. His wife regarded him as lazy and shiftless. For his part, Rip thought her to be shrewish.

One day, Rip went off into the Catskills with his dog and, with dusk approaching, had just started on his way back home when he heard someone calling out his name. He espied a small, dwarf-like creature and, following him through a cleft in the mountains, he entered a hollow where he came upon a number of similar folk, all dressed in the archaic Dutch fashion of previous times, solomnly playing at nine-pins. Watching their sport, he imbibes a large quantity of their drink and falls asleep.

Upon awakening, he discovers that his rifle is rusted, with the wooden stock badly decayed, and his dog missing. Nor can he find any evidence of the previous evenings revellries, nor even the mountain cleft or the hollow.